IRA victim fights Mowlam ruling

A former civil servant whose parents were murdered in the Shankill Road bombing in Belfast six years ago in which nine people died will today spearhead a high court challenge over the ruling by the Northern Ireland secretary, Mo Mowlam, that the IRA ceasefire remained intact.

Michelle Williamson, 32, will be joined at Belfast high court by leading unionists, including David Trimble, first minister designate, and Jeffrey Donaldson, her local MP. She is applying for leave to seek a judicial review of Ms Mowlam's decision.

The action is in her name alone, and she has been granted legal aid for the initial advice and hearings. But it has the approval of unionists.

Ms Williamson, forced to give up work on medical grounds after she was left mentally shattered by the massacre in which her parents George, 63, and Gillian, 47, died, has been a prominent campaigner in the fight against the early release of convicted terrorists, a key aspect of the agreement.

Ms Mowlam decided the IRA ceasefire had been breached but had not broken down following the murder in July of a Catholic taxi driver.

Ms Williamson's counsel, Reg Weir QC, will argue that Ms Mowlam should have ruled the ceasefire had broken down if she had correctly applied four criteria in the Northern Ireland (sentences) act.

Unionists believe that Ms Mowlam, rather than apply the law, was instead afraid the IRA would return to a full-scale offensive. They think that her failure to take action has paved the way for increased paramilitary activity.

Ms Williamson said yesterday: "The prospect of the high court action is nerve-wracking, but I believe that the secretary of state was making the latest in a long line of concessions to IRA terrorists."